


Time-Travelling Sky Pirates of Ivalice

by rionaleonhart



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2007-08-08
Updated: 2007-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24408574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rionaleonhart/pseuds/rionaleonhart
Summary: The adventures of Balthier, Fran and Captain Jack Harkness.





	1. In Which Our Heroes Meet

This has to be at least the fourteenth time Captain Jack Harkness has found himself chained up in some form of dungeon. He suspects that it probably comes of being all too easy to trick into wearing handcuffs. As twenty-three days have now gone by and it has become increasingly clear that absolutely no sex is forthcoming, he is starting to become slightly bored and restless, and so he rather perks up when thick grey smoke suddenly floods the room. Burning to death is not exactly high on his list of desired events; it is, in fact, one of the most unpleasant things he has ever experienced, but at least a fire devastating the place would be slightly more interesting than the monotony of this endless waiting for nothing.

The smoke quickly disperses, however, and when it has cleared, there are two people standing there: a man and a woman.

“The smoke was necessary?” the woman asks. She appears to be a member of a species Jack has never encountered before and rather wishes he had; long, rabbit-like ears rise through the intricately designed helmet she is wearing, and she moves with a grace that is not quite human.

“Dramatic effect, Fran; dramatic effect,” the man explains. “Where’s the fun of it if we can’t cause a little stir? Now, what have we here?”

“Are you the rescue team?” Jack asks, pointedly rattling his bonds.

“Well,” the man says, looking at him with mild curiosity, “that depends entirely on whether you can make it worth the trouble, doesn’t it? As it happens, we only came to relieve your captors of a few of their more interesting possessions.”

“You can let me go while you’re at it, can’t you? It can’t be that hard.”

“You were the man apprehended on his way to assassinate the Emperor, weren’t you? They won’t like it if I let you go. I can’t say I’m very popular with the palace at the moment, but there’s no need for me to raise the price on my head any higher than it stands.”

“They _said_ I was trying to assassinate the Emperor,” Jack corrects him.

“Whatever your actual intentions were, in the eyes of the Archadian army I’ll still have assisted the man who was trying to overthrow the Empire,” he says, leaning casually back against the bare stone wall. “So, how can you tempt me to release you? You can’t be terribly bright, or you would have made more of an attempt to make yourself inconspicuous before breaking into the imperial palace, so you’ll have to find something else to recommend you. Did it not occur to you that your accent might give you away?”

“Would you believe me if I said I honestly didn’t know it was the palace?” Jack asks, a little sheepishly.

The man raises an eyebrow. “Not in the slightest.”

“My teleporter was thrown off,” Jack tries to explain. “Probably a solar flare or something. It landed me in this place. I didn’t know where I was, so I went up to the nice-looking man in the suit of armour to ask, and next thing I knew I was locked up in here.”

“There are no teleport points here,” the man says. “You couldn’t have been thrown into the palace by accident, no matter how shady a dealer you buy your Teleport Stones from. If you want to ingratiate yourself, perhaps you should make your lies to your potential rescuers a little less obvious. Don’t suppose you have a pen with you, do you?”

“Check the front pocket of my jeans,” Jack says. “As I’m so generously letting you borrow it, you couldn’t set me free, could you?”

“Jeans?” he repeats, entirely ignoring what is definitely, in Jack’s opinion, the more important part.

“Pants. Trousers. Whatever you call them. You know, if you undid these shackles, I’d be able to fetch it for you myself.”

“I think I can probably manage,” the man says, extracting the pen so lightly that Jack barely has the chance to pretend he’s half-crouching for any other reason, which is obviously unfair. He pulls a piece of parchment out of his pocket ( _parchment,_ Jack thinks, amused; _haven’t seen that in a while_ ) and, after a brief and clearly dubious inspection of the ballpoint, he holds it against the wall and begins sketching a rough map with quick strokes. The woman watches, occasionally murmuring things too quietly for Jack to hear.

Jack coughs and rattles the chains again. The man turns around, looking rather exasperated.

“Look, Mr...?”

“Harkness.”

“Mr. Harkness. Do you know who we are?”

“No idea,” Jack says. “I’m not all that fussy about who lets me out of here, though.”

“Well, before you become too eager to join the merry crew, you should probably know that we are a pair of sky pirates. Rather infamous ones, in fact.”

Jack is made none the wiser by this, and his confusion is apparently visible in his expression, because his new acquaintances look at each other and shake their heads almost in unison.

"Sky pirates," the man says, folding his arms and cocking an eyebrow. "Dangerous ruffians. I wouldn't associate with us if I were you."

"Good thing you're not, then," Jack says, with his most ingratiating grin. "I'd probably miss out on a lot of fun." He looks pointedly at the bunny woman's less-than-adequate clothing. She does not appear to be particularly impressed.

"Fran has teeth and claws, Mr. Harkness," the man says, evidently amused. "I can vouch for their sharpness. You have a pen – one of very low quality, I might add – and, apparently, a malfunctioning teleportation device. I would advise you to take your eyes elsewhere."

"You'd be welcome to join us," Jack offers, magnanimously.

The man looks somewhat taken aback, then looks with clear astonishment at Fran, who has started to make a quiet sound, not quite like human laughter but clearly equivalent to it.

"You don't often laugh, Fran," he remarks.

She quickly reassumes her composure, but there is still a hint of amusement in her voice when she speaks. "We are not often made such an offer."

The man laughs. “Very true. I can’t say this was what I was thinking of when I asked how you could persuade us into letting you go, but it’s certainly the most interesting proposal I’ve heard for a while. You’ll have to try a little harder if you want your freedom, though.” He pulls out a watch on a chain and inspects it. “Well, we must leave our captive friend here for the moment; there are treasures to be acquired. If we’re not chased out by four dozen Archadian soldiers, we may have time to chat on our return. Good day.”

And, before Jack has time to formulate a coherent response, they are gone.

-

Some time passes – he has no way of telling how much – and Jack is almost on the verge of sleep when he hears a noise. He opens his eyes, and a moment later the two of them come creeping around the corner, the man carrying what appear to be several solid gold tablets.

“These will do nicely,” he says in a low voice, slipping the tablets into the quiver on Fran’s back. Jack has to wonder why he didn’t just do that before. “Shall we go?”

“You can’t just leave me here!” Jack protests.

“On the contrary, I rather think I can. Come on, Fran.”

“Wait!” Jack says, desperately. He is so, so tired of being left behind. “I’ve got something more valuable than those.”

“Oh?” the man asks, sceptically. “I feel it only fair to warn you that, if this turns out to be your body, I am going to refuse to speak to you.”

“Do we know each other?” Jack asks, mock-startled. “But no, it’s not. Although I do have a very nice body.”

The two sky pirates exchange glances. Fran tilts her head slightly and makes a subtle motion with her left hand. This apparently means something to the man, who turns back.

“If we’re going to be doing business, I suppose it’s only polite to make introductions,” he says. “My name is Balthier, and my partner's, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, is Fran. You would do well to remember them.”

Jack grins. Now, at last, they're getting someplace. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Captain?" Balthier repeats, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, we are important, aren't we? Would you mind telling me, my good Captain, who you captain for?"

Jack shrugs. "Whoever'll have me."

"If you're a mercenary, you'll have better luck elsewhere. We pirates prefer to keep our spoils to ourselves."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Jack says, dropping his voice and waggling his eyebrows in a deliberately overblown fashion. "I don't deal in money."

"And you genuinely believe that we are going to need a lecherous madman aboard the _Strahl_?" Balthier asks, amused.

"Well," Jack says, grinning confidently, "a lecherous madman who knows how to travel in time, maybe."

There is a brief silence. Fran regards him with suspicion.

“Travel in time?” she repeats.

“And I’ll take you out for a drink,” Jack adds, hopeful.

“You know,” Balthier says, thoughtfully, “there was a very valuable sceptre that went missing almost a century ago. I think I may have just worked out who the thieves were.”


	2. In Which Our Heroes Eventually Get Around to What They Came Here For

“Viera tend to be a rather insular race,” Balthier says, “and they were almost unknown in Hume society until fairly recently. We may garner a few strange looks.”

“I can live with that,” Jack says, cheerfully.

Balthier smiles slightly. “I can’t say I’m surprised that you’re happy to be the centre of attention. Fran, however, prefers to keep to herself.”

Jack looks over at Fran. She is showing no outward signs of being uncomfortable with the attention they are getting, but he knows better than to assume he can read the mannerisms of a species of which he has almost no experience. Balthier clearly knows her far better than he does.

They are walking along a street a hundred years in the past of this world, which is, Jack has come to understand, apparently called Ivalice. Jack has been keeping an eye out for any interesting differences in technology, but if there are any they certainly aren’t very noticeable. Still, most of his knowledge of this world’s future has come from a rather poorly-equipped dungeon.

“Curative magicks hadn’t been discovered at this point,” Balthier explains, watching as a wounded young woman staggers along the street. He raises a hand to his forehead, frowning in concentration, and then makes a sweeping gesture; a strange light surrounds her, healing her wounds, and she stops short and looks around in astonishment as the three of them slip back into the crowd. “Many bold adventurers died young. There were various potions and remedies, of course, but magicks are generally far more useful out in the field. It seems incredible now, doesn’t it? Well,” he corrects himself, with a slight smile, “by ‘now’, I mean the period from which we came, obviously.”

Jack, who has no experience whatsoever of ‘magicks’ and so finds it somewhat less than incredible, makes a vague, non-committal noise. “You really shouldn’t use things that don’t exist yet around the locals.”

“Forgive me, Captain, but that hardly seems decent,” Balthier says, looking at him. “Are there going to be dire consequences if I save her life?”

“You don’t know. She could end up as a murderer.”

“So I should have ignored her? Is that what you would have done?”

“Well, no,” Jack admits. “But I thought I should probably play the responsible time-traveller, as I’m the one with experience. We’re not supposed to interfere. It’s one of the things we have drilled into us at the Time Agency.” He hesitates. “Still, the person I travelled with after that would have saved her, and he’s the one I’d trust.”

Balthier seems about to speak, but Fran looks sharply at him and he falls silent. After a moment, he changes the subject. “Do you have a licence to use Cure?”

“I, uh, I don’t think so,” Jack says. “I’m not really from around here.”

“Ah. Hmmm. Well, I don’t imagine it’ll be terribly easy to acquire a licence for a magick that doesn’t exist yet, but you probably can’t be arrested for using it without one, either. It’s a useful spell, and you’ll almost certainly need it before long. Have you ever used magicks before?”

Jack, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, shakes his head.

Balthier sighs theatrically. “I had hoped we wouldn’t begin to regret our decision quite so soon. Well, come on; if I’m going to have to teach you all the very basics of combat, we had best start immediately.”

-

“You’ve never used _any_ bladed weapons?” Balthier repeats, sceptically.

“Look,” Jack protests, “I’ve never exactly urgently needed to learn. I’ve always had my sonic blaster.” He pauses, then says, rather wistfully, “Wish the guards hadn’t taken it off me.”

“Had they left it with you,” Balthier observes, “they would have been more than foolish enough for you to escape on your own, and we would never have met the invaluable third member of our little team. And we couldn’t have that, could we? Now: to swordsmanship.”

“Couldn’t I use a gun instead?” Jack asks, looking at the holster on Balthier’s hip.

Balthier looks at him in incredulity. “You want me to lend you my weapon?” he asks, in the sort of disbelieving tone he might have used if Jack had asked to borrow one of his legs for a couple of days.

“Maybe not yours,” Jack says, hastily, “but I could buy one for myself, couldn’t I?”

Balthier considers him for a moment. “Even if you’re planning to use a gun, you should probably at least know how to wield a sword,” he says, eventually. “Good guns are difficult to come by, and you’ll often find that the bladed weapons on sale are more effective.”

“Swords are more powerful than guns here?” Jack asks, half-laughing. “What kind of place is this?”

“A place in which, if you _do_ carry a gun, your foes are like to sorely underestimate you,” Balthier says, smirking, and he brushes his fingers fondly over the holster. “Shall we begin your lessons?”

-

Balthier works for the next few days on teaching Jack how to use swords and a couple of basic magicks. Although the time they can spend on lessons is slightly limited by Jack's habit of slipping off and sneaking into bars to mingle with the locals at every opportunity, he is a quick learner, to Balthier’s evident surprise, and he soon becomes quite adept at cutting down the wolves that roam outside the city, with Balthier and Fran waiting to step in if it all goes horribly wrong. ‘Cure’ quickly becomes Jack’s favourite new ability, although he only ever casts it on his companions (and sometimes, when he feels like giving the finger to the Time Agency, on strangers in the street); it speeds up the healing of wounds, and he sometimes wishes he had known it earlier.

They sleep in a protective bubble of magicks on the outskirts of a small settlement to the south of the city (Rabanastre, Jack has discovered, is the city’s name), and live on whatever they can find at the market. Balthier regards the food with a certain amount of distaste, but Jack loves it; it is plain and simple fare, but it is very filling and tastes reasonably good. Fran, he notices, never seems to eat. When he asks about it, she looks coolly at him and says nothing, and he moves away with the vague feeling that he has committed some sort of _faux pas_.

Eventually, Balthier concludes that Jack has learnt enough to survive for more than a few seconds on their highly dangerous mission. The sword he has been using to practice with is a cheap and rather ineffective one, he explains, and he would do best to purchase his own weapon.

Which is why Jack has ventured into the busy Rabanastran market and is presently examining a finely-honed blade.

“It’s three thousand Gil,” the weapon vendor says.

“How about two thousand and I buy you a drink?” Jack asks, with his most winning smile.

The vendor looks distinctly unimpressed. Jack is a little relieved; he made the offer almost without thinking. He doesn’t even have the money for the drink, let alone two thousand Gil.

-

“So,” Jack says, as casually as possible, “how do you get money around here?”

“And you were doing so well,” Balthier says, putting on a show of deep disappointment. “How can you possibly have survived for so long without knowing how to make money? Or have you always been living by dishonest means?”

“I know how to make money,” Jack protests, choosing not to mention his days as a conman. “I just don’t know how to make it _here_. And I don’t think the weapon guy understands exactly how much my company should be worth.”

Balthier looks at him with an expression of mingled exasperation and amusement. “I’d rather not spend our winnings pre-emptively on your equipment. And spending a few weeks skinning wolves and selling the pelts would be more than any of us could bear, I suspect. You’ll have to use the flimsy thing you were practising with and hope we don’t run into any trouble.”

There is a brief pause.

“If it became necessary to acquire skins,” Fran says, apparently reluctant to suggest the idea, “my claws – ”

“It’s out of the question, Fran,” Balthier says, firmly. “We’re already making enough demands on your dignity with the sewer entrance.”

“What?” Jack asks.

-

“There is a way into the palace through these sewers,” Balthier says. “Not dignified, but practical. I doubt that the rat problem is any better controlled in this time than it will be a hundred years from now, so I hope you can remember how to use your weapon.”

“Oh, excellent,” Jack says, following him into the ankle-high water. “Is fighting rats with swords a popular pastime around here, then?”

-

“Those are some big rats,” Jack says, rather stunned. He is still gripping the handle of the sword as tightly as he can, despite the fact that the rodents have already been dispatched. He’s met giant frogs and insects the size of skyscrapers, but even with all the planets he’s visited the rats have always been a manageable size. The one constant. He feels betrayed.

“You must have lived a very sheltered life,” Balthier says, suppressed laughter colouring his voice.

-

They move swiftly through the sewers, pausing only to defend themselves against the Gigantic Sabre-Toothed Hellrats and a number of highly irritating batlike creatures that delight in swooping at Jack’s head and flying away again before he can strike. At one point, Fran shoots a bat-thing when it is bare inches from Jack; the arrow passes so close that he can feel the air displaced by it ruffle his shirt, and he spins around in astonishment.

“If you express the slightest doubt about Fran’s aim,” Balthier says before Jack has a chance to speak, “I’ll leave you to the rats. I can assure you that she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

Jack takes the hint and falls silent. They move on a little farther, passing two enormous hovering fish (“Not aggressive unless provoked,” Balthier says, “and I have no particular desire to provoke them”), and eventually reach a ladder leading upwards. Balthier pauses, his hand resting on one of the rungs.

“You’ll need to stay unobtrusive,” Balthier says. “That, I have to remind you, means no flirting with the guards whatsoever. I have no concerns about Fran; she knows how to stay out of sight. You, however, are another matter entirely.”

“No problem,” Jack says, cheerfully.

Balthier does not look entirely convinced, but he leads the way into the palace regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I'm ever likely to write more of this - it's been a long time! - but I love this trio and I still have a vague dream of returning to this universe at some point.


End file.
